by Debbie Zello
She had never owned something this daring. If it wasn’t for Piper being with her one day for lunch, she would never have bought it. “How do you think I got pregnant?” Piper said. “Ben couldn’t keep his hands off me in this.”
“Okay, Piper, here goes nothing,” she said to her lingerie. Cheri quickly stripped out of her jeans, tee, bra, and panties. Then she stepped into the soft lace of her teddy drawing it up and over her curves and shoulders. After adjusting the girls into place, she looked at herself in the full-length tri-fold mirror.
“You look scared to death. That and gawky, if that’s a word. White and stiff comes to mind, too.” Cheri was always overly critical of her shape and looks. “He’s going to run screaming outside and jump in the ocean to get away,” she said frowning.
“Wear this and he won’t be able to speak. He’ll probably drool. Ben lasted about two minutes he was so excited. But it was the best two minutes of my life,” Piper said grinning.
“God, I hope you’re right, Piper!” Cheri said heading out of the closet. She began to pad her way back to the living room making no noise in her bare feet.
Her seduction skills were nearly non-existent. She began dating David as soon as she got to college. She was never out in bars or anywhere trying to attract a guy. Once she left him, she threw herself into her work and never went out.
She gently swayed her hips as Piper had shown her on one of her many makeover nights. At first Gareth’s back was to her as he lit the fire. She waited at the end of the hall for him to turn around.
In one fluid motion, he rose and sat in the stuffed chair next to the fireplace. Then his eyes rose to Cheri. Time stopped as his eyes went from hers down to her feet and ever so slowly back up. The look he gave her was smoldering. Her teddy should have been fireproof.
With every bit of confidence she could muster, she sashayed over to him standing between his legs, smiling. Leaning forward, he slid his hands up her thighs to her hips. Then he leaned further into her, resting his forehead against hers. Finding his voice, he said, “Years ago, I dreamt I was sitting in a chair next to a fire, when the most strikingly beautiful woman I had ever seen walked up to me and stood in front of me, wearing a scrap of lace. I didn’t know who she was until just now.”
“That is the loveliest thing anyone has ever said to me,” Cheri said smoothing his hair. Gareth tightened his grip on her, moving her so she straddled his hips with her legs. He reached in-between them and snapped her teddy open. “How did you know to do that?” she asked him, shyly.
“You’re my first dream-come-true but not my first teddy. I have to get condoms. Can you hold the thought until I get back?”
“I don’t think we need one,” she said kissing him. She pulled his tee over his head and threw it behind her.
“I can’t stop once we start, Cheri. I won’t pull out either. If we do this, we’re all in,” he said holding her face between his hands.
“I’m all in, Gareth. I love you. I’m going to marry you. It doesn’t get more in than that,” she said sweetly. He stood up holding her, turning and placing her on the chair. He slipped off his jeans and boxers, standing before her so she could get a good look.
Gareth placed his hands on the armrests bringing his head to her level. “I’ve never done this without a condom. If it’s as good as I’m told, I may not last long,” he said almost pre-apologizing for a poor performance.
Cheri stood up and had Gareth sit back down in the chair, resuming her previous position. Kissing him with her tongue mating with his she took his hamster into her hand showing it the way. As her hips lowered against his she said, “The best two minutes of my life.”
“I have to straighten this out with you. Last night you said something about it only being two minutes. I have a rep to uphold and I definitely think it was more than two minutes,” Gareth teased Cheri over breakfast.
“What rep? I was never told anything about you having a rep. Full disclosure, mister. I may have to take back my previous promises. You can’t form a contract without all of the information,” Cheri teased right back.
“That might be a moot point, my love, if you get pregnant. And after last night and this morning, you just might be a fallen woman in need of my intervention.”
“Is that so? The very first time you refer to me as your ‘baby momma’ will be the very last time you ever utter those two words together. Consider that a warning,” she said, with a shake of her finger. Gareth rose from the table, walked over to her, and picked her up from her chair. Walking down the three steps, he headed towards the pool.
“Put me down, you brute. You had better not throw me in the pool,” she screamed. He kept walking, grinning from ear to ear.
“Gareth Marshall, put me down!” she said using her irascible voice. He was mere steps from the water. “Gareth, I haven’t finished my coffee. You know what that means.”
“I’m about to see how mad a wet hen gets?” he said clearly unable to hide his grin. He got to the side and said, “Hold your breath!” He jumped in with her still in his arms.
The water was warm and delightful. Cheri wasn’t mad. She was glad it was a heated pool, which was a surprise. They splashed around for a few minutes before Gareth took on that same dark look of longing that Cheri was becoming accustomed to. She knew exactly what he was thinking when that look came over him.
He disappeared under the water. When he came up, he had his bathing suit in his hand, throwing it out on the tile. “The last time I did that I had a second suit on. I don’t this time,” he said treading water in front of her.
“What are your intentions, sir?” Cheri asked stone-faced.
“I thought we might play ‘hide the hamster in the pool’, a game I just invented.” Cheri’s eyebrow raised and she disappeared under the water. When she came up, she had her bathing suit bottom in her hand throwing it near his.
“I think I might know how to play this game you just invented.”
“I bet you do, too,” he said taking her to the shallow end of the pool. Positioning himself under her, with her legs wrapped around him he said, “Going without a condom is going to be a tough habit to break.”
“You’re not going to need to break it.”
Cheri lay on a towel in the sand while Gareth smeared sun lotion on her back. “You have nice hands. They feel good on me,” she said.
“Watch it, lady, I’m spoken for. And my old lady will kick your ass and mine if she hears you talking like that,” he said laughing.
“Then we probably shouldn’t tell her what we just did in the pool, right?”
“That piece of information stays in Vegas, if you know what I mean,” Gareth said. He looked up from Cheri’s back to see Naomi walking towards them.
“Look at you all domesticated. I almost thought someone was squatting on the beach. I didn’t recognize you, boss,” Naomi said.
Cheri lifted her head. “Hi. I’m Cheri.”
“Hi. I’m Naomi. Thank God, everybody has their clothes on. I’ve already had to wash my eyes out twice this week.”
“You love it and you know it!” Gareth teased.
“Your man doesn’t like to wear clothes to bed and I’m his wake up call, most days.
“I’d report that if I were you,” Cheri said laughing.
“Whose side are you on?” Gareth chuckled.
“I was going to but I figured I’d need pictures to prove it and he keeps breaking the damn camera,” she said turning to go back in the house.
“You’re fired!” Gareth yelled after her.
“Good, I need a rest!” Naomi yelled back.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“He’s a good man,” Naomi said.
“He’s a wonderful man. You don’t have to tell me. I know how lucky I am,” Cheri said, checking Naomi out. She had multi-colored hair with multi-lengths. It was shaved to her head on one side, shoulder length in the back, and the other side was ear-length. An electric blue and a shocking pink streak ran down the back. She w
as slightly taller than Cheri and rail thin.
Gareth had gone out to get dinner for them at his favorite Italian restaurant. This gave the two girls time to talk.
“You’re the first woman he’s brought here for a sleep-over in the three years I’ve worked for him.”
“Why haven’t you tried to pick him up?”
“Not my type. If he had rad tats, a do rag and a barn queen, he might get my attention.”
“Sorry, what’s a barn queen?”
“A cherry bike. The kind that was never ridden and stored in someone’s barn like forever,” Naomi said with a far off look in her eyes.
“You sound like you’re straight out of the sixties.”
“My parents were. I was raised free and easy in a commune south of here. I’ve sat on more than one bush pad behind a clubber.”
“So you’re looking for a biker?” Cheri questioned.
“I don’t know for sure. I won’t be a club whore. The thought of being passed around to all the members makes me sick. I want to find a Gareth slash biker slash clubber. Who just wants me. I go back and forth.”
“Back and forth between what, exactly?”
“Men and women. I can’t decide.”
“I’m back, you can stop talking about me,” Gareth yelled from the door.
“Yeah, like it’s all about you. Some of us have other things to talk about, Boss.” Gareth walked into the kitchen and set the food down on the counter.
“Okay then, what were you talking about?” he asks.
“Bikers and love,” Cheri said. Gareth kissed her on the head.
“Am I learning how to ride a bike?”
“Not for me,” Cheri said.
“How do you feel about shaving your head and getting some tats?” Naomi asked.
“I could shave and I already have a tat. How many more are we talking about?”
“Lots more. Like a blanket,” Naomi said.
“Not happening. For me, one was enough.”
“Case closed,” Cheri said, laughing.
After dinner, Naomi finished what she had to do and left. Cheri was washing the glasses and silverware they had used. Gareth came up behind her, sweeping her hair away and kissing her neck. He pulled her up against him and said, “If you find out you’re pregnant, I want to know as soon as you do. Don’t save the information as a surprise for the next time we see each other, please.”
“I’ll call you. I doubt that I am.”
“Stranger things have happened. We have been playing with fire, repeatedly.”
“If I am, you’ll know, right away, I promise.”
They lay quietly next to each other wrapped up in their post-lovemaking glow. Gareth’s thumb rhythmically stroking her arm. “I don’t want to go back.”
“Then don’t.”
“You make things so simple. I have a mess back there that no one but me can pick up. I have to straighten out the office so I can sell it. I have to testify to nothing but the DA still wants me there. The whole thing sucks,” Cheri said snuggling against him.
Gareth rose above her, cradling her head in his big hands. He kissed her deeply, causing her to writhe under him. He backed up, looking at her almost nose to nose. “I don’t want one breath, one dawn, or to ever make love again, without you,” he said with his eyes caressing her.
Cheri began to cry with his admission. She knew she had never been loved like this before. “I don’t want one breath, one dawn, or to ever make love again, without you,” she said, as he wiped her tears away.
Sunday was her last day there with him. Gareth wanted to take Cheri on a long ride all along the coast on Route 1 to Big Sur. To do that they had to get up very early. At five, Gareth was kissing her to wake her up for their adventure. “Time to wake up, sleepy head.”
“It’s still dark out.”
“It’s a long drive and I want to have lunch in Big Sur. You can sleep some more in the car, if you want,” he said with a playful slap on her butt.
“Okay, I’ll get up. Can you make some coffee?”
“Already on it, my love. I know you without coffee…not a pretty sight!”
“And don’t you ever forget that!” she said giggling. Cheri got up and showered quickly. She put on a pair of shorts and a tank top over her bathing suit. She figured she would wear it in case they went swimming in the ocean. She joined Gareth in the kitchen in twenty minutes.
“You’re fast! You look even more beautiful now that the sun has kissed your skin. The beach looks good on you.”
“Thank you. Yesterday was great!”
“The coffee is in the travel mugs, the car is outside with towels and sunscreen. You ready to go?”
“As I’ll ever be,” she said taking his hand. Gareth drove on Route 101 to San Louis Obispo where he veered off onto Route 1 so they could drive up the coast. Cheri didn’t sleep with the view out of Gareth’s window too stunning to sleep through. He gave her a running narration of the local claims to fame. Who lives here, who found what here, and so on. Cheri had a smile plastered to her face for hours.
Gareth began the story of William Randolph Hearst and his castle at San Simeon. “He had the kind of money that could literally buy anything. He had this built in the late 1910’s. Between 1920 and the thirties an invitation here meant you had arrived in society. Charlie Chaplin, Cary Grant, Charles Lindbergh, Clark Gable were regulars along with the likes of Churchill and Roosevelt.
“He had formal, black-tie dinners every night and if you were a guest, you were expected to attend. And whatever Hearst expected, you did. He ran his empire from here during the day and partied hard all night. I would have loved to have seen it.”
“They have tours, the sign says. Have you ever been there?”
“A long time ago. It’s huge and opulent. The state owns it and runs it. The Hearst family maintains a much smaller Victorian house on the property that they still use.”
“I can imagine what it costs to maintain it. The electric bill must be huge!”
“I’m sure. That’s why they have tours, it pays the bills,” Gareth said. He drove further north with the ocean on their left and the mountains on their right. Cheri dreamed of the time she would make this place her home. When she would raise her and Gareth’s children. And the times she would take them back to her home at the Cape.
The closer they got to Big Sur, the more rugged and wild the terrain got. The road began its incline and the coastal beauty was far below. Gareth pulled into Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park so they could get out and look around.
They walked the boardwalk bridges over the cliffs. Cheri was silent in her thoughts. Her East Coast had white, sandy beaches. This part of the California coast, the mountains kissed the ocean. A small strip of sand was visible at low tide but disappeared quickly as the tide came rushing in to the rocks.
Gareth stood behind Cheri, holding her in his arms. “So what do you think?”
“It’s stunning, so wild and free. It’s so unlike the East Coast, so totally different,” she said, thinking aloud.
“Come on, there’s more,” he said pulling her away from the panorama. They walked the length of the walkway between trees bent by the wind and sea-spray. They made their way back to the car.
Gareth drove the two miles or so to Partington Cove where they got out, again walking along the beach. “The waves here scooped out the rock formations, making these arches and passageways between the rocks. Keep your flip-flops on because it can be sharp in places,” he said, cautioning her.
Holding Cheri’s hand, they walked the beach, in and out of the rocks, laughing. Birds circled overhead and the waves crashed on the shore. It was perfect in Cheri’s mind. Gareth’s stomach growled loudly. “I’m starving. Are you ready for some lunch?”
“More than ready. Where are we going?” Cheri asked.
“Post Ranch Inn it’s over the Bixby Bridge. It’s beautiful with views to match. It’s a typical Californian menu. I think you’ll love it.”
After being seated and given a menu, Cheri chose:
Tuna Tartare with black olives
Grilled Eggplant with lemon relish
Flourless chocolate cake with ice cream and caramel sauce
And Gareth picked:
Pickled baby beet salad
Roasted Sea Scallops
Carrot cake
Gareth asked for the Sommelier and soon he was standing at their table. Cheri had never seen a wine specialist before with his tastevin around his neck and his personal Sommelier knife in his hand. “Mademoiselle et Monsieur, my name is Gerard. How may I be of service to you?”
“Good day, Gerard. I was hoping that you would choose a wine for us. We are both having some fish and Mademoiselle is also having eggplant.”
“Leave it to me, sir. I’ll be back soon,” he said bowing. He left as Gareth stared at Cheri.
“You should see your face in this light. You’re glowing. I want you so badly, and it’s a long ride home, damn it!”
“Just think of how excited you’ll be once we get there,” she said giggling.
“I wonder how comfortable the garage wall will be on your back?” he said looking up, as if was actually contemplating it.
“You’re very bad, you know that? Can’t we at least make it to the couch?”
“I doubt it,” he said smiling at her. “What am I going to do tomorrow with you gone?”
Cheri’s eyes began to fill with tears. “I don’t want to think about tomorrow. I have Memorial weekend and July 4th and then I’ll see you in September. There is nothing in between those dates. No tomorrow or next week, nothing.”
Gerard returned, placing the bottle so Gareth could see the label. With a polished flourish, he opened his chosen wine and poured a small amount in a glass. He swirled it around, lifted the vapors with a wave of his hand and inhaled deeply. Cheri couldn’t take her eyes off him; it was such a show to her. Then he handed the aerated glass to Gareth and said, “Sir.”